A.- I believe the oath was to that effect, your Honor... yes.
Q.- And you heard some of Hitler's speeches?
A.- Yes, Your Honor.
Q.- And you knew of his violent attitude toward the Jews?
A.- Yes, I knew that, your Honor.
Q.- Yes, Well, didn't it occur to you that some time sooner or later, that you would be called upon to execute one of his orders which had to do with Jewry, and you were bound by oath to execute that order? Didn't it occur to you in the early days that that would come about?
A.- Your Honor, that I would ever receive an order in the war to kill Jews never occurred to me. Of course, we expected at the time that the Jews would be restricted considerably... that they might be interned during the war because they constituted a danger... but measures as they were carried out at the end, I never thought of!
Q.- Did you yourself believe they were a danger in Germany to the security of the Reich?
A.- Your Honor, according to all that had been done against the Jews until the beginning of the war, I believe that no German held the opinion that they would feel friendly towards the German people in their war, and insofar I would like to compare it with the fact that in war time enemy aliens, for example, are interned in order to avoid any danger which they might constitute.
Q.- Although you say you never witnessed the execution of any Jewish children, you know that some were executed. Now, I ask you, were any children,but Jewish children executed?
A.- No, Your Honor, I wouldn't know what kind of children.
Q.- Did you do anything after 1938, when these excesses occurred, to in some way separate yourself from this oath of allegiance to a man who was obviously leading to the demanding of greater and greater excesses against the Jews?
A.- Your Honor, the 9th of November 1938 -- and I still retain that opinion, even now -- was an independent measure by Goebbles and the SA on their own authority, and I regretted it deeply at the time, and I considered it a pity for out people; and at the time I did not think that such measures would ever be taken as finally were taken.
Q.- Well, did you consider it a pity when a couple of days later a fine of one billion marks was levied on the Jewish people in Germany, who had nothing to do with the killing in Paris. Did you regard that with pity and sympathy?
A.- I don't know anything about this. You justmentioned a killing of Jews in Paris. This is the first time I hear about this.
Q.- Well, now, you know that because of an incident in Paris a fine of one billion marks was levied on the Jewish people in Germany... You know that, of course.
A.- I believe it was more, your Honor. I considered this measure also wrong.
Q.- Yes. Well, then, when you say these wrong things happened, why didn't you do something to withdraw from the organization which was doing these wrong things?
A.- Your Honor, the organization to which I belonged did not do it. But we objected to it. And if the SD reports existed now, they would prove this. I just said I considered it my task in the SD to tell the Leadership how the people thought about these things, and through my report I thought I would be able to stop such things in the future.
Q.- Witness, it was the Reich government which levied this fine, and you were part of the Reich government.
A.- If I remember correctly, Hermann Goering levied this money... I don't know on what authority, your Honor.
Q.- Well, it was collected, and it went to the benefit of the Reich Government, of which you were a part.
A.- I presume so, that it was for the benefit of the Reich government - but I was not part of the Reich government, your Honor.
Q.- You weren't part of the Reich Government?
A.- No, I could not say that, your Honor. By Reich government I mean the Ministers -- that was the Reich government.
Q.- Is it your idea that the government is made up only of Ministers? Is that your idea of the government?
A.- NO, but, your Honor, perhaps we misunderstand each other here. We in Germany mean by Reich government only the Reich ministers, That is the Reich Government.
Q.- Well, then, we will use the generic term of the Reich..... you were part of the Reich weren't you?
A.- I was an official of the Reich, yes.
Q.- Yes. So to that extent you were interested in what the government was doing?
A.- Yes, I had to carry out the laws of the government as a civil servant. That was my duty.
Q.- Yes, Well..... therefore, you were part of an organization which was doing these things which you condemned, weren't you?
A.- Your Honor, I can only repeat -- the events of 9 November was a measure by Goebbles and the SA only, and not by the Reich government. As far as I remember, Adolf Hitler himself was disgusted about this measure. That is what we were told at the time. I believe I was already in Munich when Himmler talked to Adolf Hitler at the time.
Q.- And do you now give us the striking information that Hitler repudiated these excesses against the Jews?
A.- Your Honor, I can only say what we were told. I never heard Hitler's personal opinion about this.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess until tomorrow morning at nine-thirty.
(The Tribunal recessed until 0930 hours, 2 December 1947.)
of America, against Otto Ohlendorf, et al., A. Musmanno, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats.
Military Tribunal II is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
DR. STUEBINGER: Stuebinger for Braune. but, on the other hand, I should like to come back to the document which was submitted by the prosecution. The Prosecution expressed the wish to refer to this document in the rebuttal and to use it for that purpose. I would like to ask your Honor to tell me whether we have the same right, that is, to come back to this document on a later occasion? Otherwise, I have only one question to put to the witness for the following reason: The sergeant who signed this report behaved in a manner, which certainly is of very great importance for the probative value of this report, and the witness might be able to inform us if the Tribunal deems it necessary.
THE PRESIDENT: The document is not yet in evidence. It has not even been offered. When it is presented, if it is presented, you will make your objection to its introduction as an exhibit and the court will then decide whether it should be accepted. If it is not accepted, then, of course, it will be unnecessary for you to make any comment on it at all or to inquire into how it was made up. If it is accepted, full opportunity will be given to you to recall the defendant and question him about it in any way and to any extent that you deem in order.
DR. STUEBINGER: Yes, your Honor. I only want to direct your attention to the fact today that for the case of the submission of this document this sergeant must be heard as a witness here, because a personal questioning will probably be necessary in this case, as far as I know,
THE PRESIDENT: You have now indicated your position and the transcript will show it. We only add that in the event this document is presented that full opportunity will be allowed you to question or attack it in any way by questioning, by calling witnesses, or in any way that a document is attacked.
DR. STUEBINGER: Also in this form that I can call this witness who made out this report.
THE PRESIDENT: I did say that, by calling witnesses.
DR. STUEBINGER: Thank you, yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q.- Witness, I am not certain whether I understood an answer which you made yesterday, and I will call your attention to the way it appears before me and indicate whether this is what you said. "We faced a situation," this refers to Christmas Day in the Crimea, "which put us before the question whether we would have to take our own lives in the coming days or whether we would fall into the hands of the Russians." Were you correctly reported?
A.- Your Honor, I wanted to express the following: The military situation was such, so serious and so hopeless and it was also even seen by the Commander of the Army to be thus, that each individual of us had to be prepared to be conquered by the Russians, and I only wanted to say that I would have been put before the question either to fall into the hands of the Russians, but I think if we had the strength to do so, we would have preferred to commit suicide. That is what I wanted to express, your Honor.
Q.- Very well, that clears it up. Just one more question. You accepted the National-Socialist ideology sincerely and with full faith, did you?
A.- Yes, at the time when I joined the movement I did, yes.
Q.- And did you still retain faith in that ideology throughout your service?
A.- Your Honor, as I saw it then, and as I understood it at the time, stantially.
On the other hand, I think I have expressed that even when did not agree with some individual details.
I, therefore expressed my Q.- But you accepted the National-Socialist ideology, did you not, and accepted it with enthusiasm?
A.- Yes, I accepted it, your Honor, but I may say quite openly it wasn't that one moved on absolute certain grounds.
We had the possibility Q.- But as far as dealing with your comrades was concerned and with Socialist Party?
A.- I spoke to Ohlendorf on many occasions during these years, and But I think it was expressed in the direct examination of Ohlendorf how he saw a number of things, and I can't express it in a better way than Q.- Yours superiors looked upon you as one who accepted the National Socialist ideology?
A.- Your Honor, I could not talk to them about it. I never heard immediate superior, then, of course, this is correct, and as based on a number of critical and worried reports, The opinion that Heydrich thought that I was one of these men who accepted practically everything without criticism, I dare to doubt, your Honor.
Q.- Well, in addition to what Ohlendorf thought, your own personal record showed that you were one who could be depended upon in the acting out of the ideology of the National Socialist Party, is that correct?
A.- Yes, that is correct, as I already said, however, with the limitation that those who expressed this did not mean the same perhaps, by the ideology, as what I meant.
Q.- Well, the ideology was not subject to much doubt. It was expressed in speeches of the Fuehrer, and it appeared in the National Socialist Party rpogram. There wasn't much doubt about what the ideology of the National Socialist Partly was, was there?
A.- I think, that also was expressed by Ohlendorf. That wasone of our worries; that the ideology did not express the last clarities which it should have done. That was one of our worries, your Honor, that after 1933 the idea was not strengthened and clarified, but that one moved very much on the outside, that one was so much influenced by propaganda. That was one of our worries, your Honor.
Q.- But no one could have doubted that the National-Socialist Party looked upon members of the Jewish race as enemies of the Reich?
A. Your Honor, enemy of the Reich may be said too much perhaps. I may say openly, I myself held the point of view, that is after 1933, that it was necessary to modify the tremendous influence that Jewry held in Germany after 1918 and to bring it back to a healthy status. I thought of a numerus clausus which would have caused that in relation to the percertages of Jews in the German population they should take part in the public life of the people. I think it my duty that I should express this at this point too. But apart from this, your Honor, we never thought of a 9th of November, 1938, nor did we think of what happened eventually, and I may assure you again that even when war broke out, and even in 1941, I never knew and we would never have believed that it would come to this development.
Q. Well, you said that you knew that the Jews were the most active of the Communists, and certainly the Reich had declared war on Communism.
A. Your Honor, one cannot say this for Germany; one could not have said that the German.......
Q. I don't mean to declare war in the official sense, but the entire policy of the National Socialist Party was to fight Communism in every form.
A. Yes, certainly to fight Communism, because we thought that was a great danger, not only for our people but for the whole of Europe.
Q. Yes. Then you said that the Jews were the most active of Communists.
A. I would like to clarify this, your Honor, I spoke of the Eastern J ews which we met there. I do not want to say this for Jewry in Germany. I would like to make this very clear distinction there.
Q. Then the Jews in Eastern Europe were the most active of the Communists, is that right
A: Your Honor, they were described that way to us in the Fuehrer Order, that is as an acute danger, and I have expressed that what we experienced there......
Q. But you said.....
A. Had to confirm this attitude according to what it said in this order.
Q. But you said, Witness, that you were of the opinion at the time that they were the most active of the Communists and therefore constituted a great danger, and then you said you were of that same opinion today.
A. That is how I found it confirmed in Russia, your Honor, after what I found out there.
Q. Yes.
A. I described the Crimea.
Q. Yes, all right. So that when you got this order from the High Command to get the Jews into their graves by Christmas you more or less approved of the principle that the Jews had to be eliminated because they were active enemies there in the Crimes against the security of the Reich?
A. No, your Honor, I would not like you to draw this conclusion. I said in my direct examination if it had been up to my decision I would not have decided in this manner because of the tremendous consequences of such a measure and the tremendous consequence in fact which they had, but I was confronted with an order within the whole event of the war and had to comply with it.
Q. But you did not, in the compliance with that order, attempt to salve your conscience by releasing one single individual human creature of the Jewish race, man, woman or child?
A. Your Honor, I have already said that I did not search for children. I can only say the truth. There were no exceptions, and I did not see any possibility.
Q. All right. Now, just one final question, and in this respect I am just as bad as defense counsel when they say only one question and then ask about ten, in the matter of the execution, witness, you stated in your affidavit that the executees were placed in such a position that they did not face the grave and they were shot from the rear. Do I understand, in reconstructing that scene, that the executors had to fire over the open grave?
A. Yes, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. The only reason I put that question is that it had been described to us differently in other executions, and I presume that different methods were used in the performance of that unpleasant function. Very well. The witness will now be returned to the defendants' dock.
(Witness excused)
THE PRESIDENT: Is Dr. Riediger present and ready to proceed? Yes, all right, and Defendant Haensch will be taken to the witness box.
WALTER HAENSCH: A witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
JUDGE SPEIGHT: Raise your right hand and repeat after me: will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath)
JUDGE SPEIGHT: You may be seated.
DR. RIEDIGER: Your Honor, may I take the liberty, before the direct examination of the defendant, to point out that the evidence will take place so that after the examination I shall call the female witness Schreier to the witness stand.
THE PRESIDENT: That is, after the examination and cross examination of the defendant?
DR. RIEDIGER: Yes, yes, after the cross examination.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, you may proceed. BY DR. RIEDIGER:
Q Dr. Haensch, will you give the Tribunal the place of your birth and birthdate? small hamlet between Goerlitz and Zittau on the Neisse River.
Q What did your parents do?
A My father was a physician. He practiced in Hirschfelde. He had a most extensive rural practice and he held this practice over fifty years until shortly before his death in February, 1945.
Q What was your education? wards a secondary school, the gymnasium, (classical education). I remained in my parents' home while I received my education. My own and my sister's education was Christian. The profession of my father as a physician carried with it that we met all classes and circles of the population and that we were in close contact with these. Thus, we children, from the very first beginning, were brought up, therefore, in an atmosphere in which we met human beings as human beings, and we learned to estimate their values not regarding what they achieved in their further life and what distinguished them from each other in further life, be it political opinions, religious beliefs or profession or class. up give you a certain impression which was of importance for your further development and your further profession? economic structure of my native village, until the end of the first World War, approximately until 1947, was merely agricultural.
From 1917 this changed especially owing to the very rich coal fields in the neighborhood. A very powerful industry developed. As a consequence of this, the population which up to that moment had been mainly agricultural and rural. now became industrial workers; they now became the majority. Several thousand foreign workers, by that I mean not inhabitants of the village -- I mean from other villages -- and also many officials from other districts came to Hirschfelde and changed the whole character of my native village completely. form. They became more and more evident. At that time, when I was a small boy, being well acquainted with the inhabitants of my village, as I have already said, and having close contacts with these inhabitants, I became very interested in these administrative authorities which, of course, I saw with the eyes of youth. I think that already at that time the psychological basis in myself was so that later on I should become more and more eager to work in administration, but this only took shape later on when I studied and when I received my professional training.
Q You therefore studied law and political science. When and where did you study? science in the University in Leipzig. There, in 1930, I passed my first legal examination.
Q Where did you receive you practical training? the time, working in several law courts, local courts, district courts, courts of appeal, as well as in my own practice as a lawyer.
Q When did you pass your state examination? examination.
you joined the NSDAP, did you not? What were your reasons, at the time, for joining the NSDAP? development. In my home politics were not discussed. My father was only interested in his work. The first initiative to be interested in political problems I received through the special conditions which I have already explained, the conditions in my native village. I have already said that the people of my environment at the time were very close to me. I was in contact with them through the children of my own age in elementary school. I knew their parents and their brothers and sisters, and I was in close daily contact with them. Through the increasing industrialization of my native village and the district, the social structure of this district also changed. This had, as its consequence, that from now on even political differences were brought up which until that moment had never appeared. They developed now so fast that they influenced public life most severely, and they led more and more towards terrific tensions. These events impressed me very deeply. I might almost say that at the time they shook me very deeply. Political propaganda influenced public life and it caused enmities among people who were very close to me, even touching individual families.
May I just finish this? I may say in order to illustrate what I have just said, I myself saw at the time that playmates of mine suddenly, without any evident reason, parted from my sister and myself and withdraw. The actual reason was nothing but this: their parents not wanting to be suspected of having given away the unity front of the proletariat and did not want their children to play with other children of other classes, of middle class parents. But this wonderful thing I remember, that most of these children and their parents, after a short while, put down their reticence and their reserve and parents again quite openly took up contact again with my father who had always been in such close contact with the population itself and discussed matters with him as they actually were.
district at the time of the November Revolution in 1948 and the following years? agitators the industrial population disintegrated. I would almost rather say, the industrial workers disintegrated into a kind of intoxication. The class struggle of the proletariat, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the elimination of the bougeois or middle class, and all these slogans influenced the working population very much. Meetings, propaganda speeches, mass demonstrations took place in turn and created a psychoses which did away with all inhibitions. I myself experienced at the time that citizens were taken from their apartments and ill-treated. I myself saw the general director of the large power plant of Hirschfelde was ill-treated and wounded and thrown into the Neisse River. Of the other accesses and acts against the property I do not want to speak of now. I myself at the suggestion of third persons, as a boy had to warn people who were in danger in order to save them from an such terror acts or ill treatment by incited elements with which they were threatened. I am thinking in particular case of the owner of a factory, and the came of a farmer, and the case of a dentist. I believe very few boys have had such a vivid political lesson concerning the consequence of Communist activities. Nobody has ever learned as much about it as we did when we were children. riots under Communist leader Hoelz?
A Yes. Hoelz himself was never in Hirschfelde himself but the wave of his terror acts influenced also my own home district which was a very favorable ground for this slogan activities. Currently events took place of tremendous extensions during this time, happenings of the kind I have already described but they were also regular organized riots of large extensions of a proper insurgent character.
Hirschfelde was occupied by the Army for more than a year and a quarter in order to be able to master all the riots and unrest that took place. Explosions of railroad installations were the order of the day in order to prevent the military from occupying the village. The bricket factory of the coal plants was also blown up. This is only an example of conditions prevailing at the time. Conditions were such that no citizen was safe. I think the work "buergerlicher" does not quite give the right meaning. What I actually mean is a citizen who likes order and place. The Bolshivist or Communist did not shrink from attacking member of Marxist parties. I myself saw, in my own home country and the twon where I visited high school, that formations of Marxist state and members of the Social Democratic Party were ill treated and in two cases were actually murdered. at the time? youth. I have also said that this considerably shook me psychologically. I could not imagine this hatred with which individual fought individual. Party political ideas I did not have at the time. On the contrary the Parties, or at least as I saw them at the time and as they actually were, fought each other and tried to tear each other down without any recognizable positive program. At least, as a boy sees it who loves his native country, his parents, and a native village and who looks upon everything with idealism or at least who wants to look at it with idealism.
Q Did you at that time begin to become active politically? always meant a lot to me.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Riadiger, what year as this and how old was the witness at the time?
is, 1920 to 1922.
THE PRESIDENT: And how old were you?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, let us move along because that was an adolescent age and let us learn what you thought as an adult. BY DR. RIEDIGER: following years? it was 1922, I joined the Jung Deutsche Orden. The causes for this were that the Jung Deutsche Orden, Young German Youth Group, was not based on any Party and was a collective movement or at least, it promised to be such, and in this movement I saw the possibility to form a bond from human being to human being. However, I left the Jung Deutsche Orden again in 1923, perhaps the beginning of 1924. At that time almost our whole local group left because the leader of this organization, Maraun, seemed to deviate from the original idea and tried to afiliate this movement to a political Party.
studies, or what did you experience politically? on the one hand, and on the other hand, I saw the strong contrast, I became acquainted with the craving for extreme luxury and moral baseness, especially, I got to know it's large extant, the consequences of communist extreme propaganda. I currently saw demonstrations or at least it was demonstrated to me what an extreme danger Bolshevism had become. I may point out perhaps this one thing. On an Easter Sunday, it must have been in 1929 or 1928, I witnessed the invader of a police officer. It was Police Captain Galls, I was close to the spot where it happened. Augustus Square in Leipzig, I was only a few steps away from the spot. It became known that Galle himself was a Marxist, and in spite of this, the Communists by the incited mob trampled him to death and played football with the pieces of his uniform. examination just before you joined the NSDAP? saw the same thing. Plauen had been very peaceful and a flourishing industrial town, but at the time the workers were unemployed and as a consequence of this a strong communist element was prevailing. So was the case in many other places. This was the time when 32 political parties confronted each other and seven million unemployed workers ran around idle.
Q When did you join the NSDAP?
A During those years I joined the NSDAP__that was in 1931. As I have already said, that was a well-considered step which I took. During the time of my studies, during the time of my referendar, I saw that the general misery affected now even such people who had been reasonable and careful up to that moment.
2 Dec 1947_M_MSD_5_2_Spears (Hilde) BY THE PRESIDENT: step on your part. Had you read the platform of the national socialist party before you joined?
A No, Your Honor. During that time then when I had recognized communism had become an immediae danger and when it was a certainty for me that there was only one decision on could take either to become a communist oneself or to oppose this movement which, occording to my experience, could only mean chaos. stood for and you chose that against communism?
Q Well, had you read "Mein Kampf"?
A I had not read "Mein Kampf" before. I read "Mein Kampf later on in the year 1932.
Q Well, when you read "Mein Kampf" in 1932, you were already a member of national socialist party? party?
PRESIDENT: Very well. Proceed. BY DR. RIEDIGER:
Q Did you held any office or function within the party? at any time. My short activity in the places of my legal training meant that I could not accept such offices. But in spite of this I expressed openly my political conviction. I advocated for it and I propaganda for it. I have already said, my joining the NSDAP was not the result of a momentary decision but a decision which I had well-considered before, a step which I had taken and a 2 Dec 1947_M_MSD_5_3_Spears (Hilde.)
step which was based on my experiences and the happenings that I had seen. From 1936 I belonged to the local group, Braunes Haus, Brown House, in Munich. So from that time onwards, I had no personal or actual organizational connection with the political organizations of the party. was being issued after a service of five or ten years? training, after you had passed your state examination, what did you do--after you passed this state examination? the General Interior State Administration, but at the time conditions were such that a great number of people applied so that one only was put down on a waiting list, and this happened in my case. In order to make use of the time until my employment in the Interior State Administration and to use it in my further task, I applied for a job of counsel assessor in the municial administration in Doebeln.
Q How long were you employed there?
A I got this job and I started in February 1935. In this position I remained from July '35. Originally I had not had the intention to remain in this position permanently or to regard it as a permanent position, therefore, the contract said that within one year I would be able to decide to leave this job if I felt so inclined or if I had the possibility to enter a State Administration career. On the other hand, however, I was told that after one year I might be able to apply for the vice mayor office of this town. My activity in Doebeln was ended after a very short time, that is, in July 1936, caused by events which were of decisive importance for my future professional development.